Art Informel (1940s, 1950s)

For the first four decades of the 20th
century, fine art painting had been dominated by abstract
art which was largely geometric in nature. These included the schools
of Cubism (c.1907-1914), Suprematism (c.1913-18), Constructivism (1914-1920s),
Vorticism (c.1913-17), Rayonism (c.1912-15), Orphism (c.1912-14), and
De Stijl (1917-31), as well as the Bauhaus Design School (1919-1933).
World War II changed everything. The new post-war reality required a new
type of art. Representationalism was still unpopular - any type of realism
was irrelevant when compared to the horrors of war - but so too was geometric
art. The unemotional intellectualism of Cubism other geometric forms was
no longer sufficient; nor was the conceptual precision of De Stijl and
other similar design schools. (See also: History
of Expressionist Painting 1880-1930.)

EVOLUTION
OF VISUAL ART
For details of art movements
and styles, see: History of Art.
For the chronology and dates
of key events in the evolution
of visual arts around the world
see: History of Art Timeline.

Europe's answer to the New York school
of abstract expressionist
painting was Art Informel, a movement that was - like its American
counterpart - a rather general umbrella term for a new style of abstract
painting which did not have any intellectual baggage or methodology. Expressive,
gestural and innovative, it was, as the name implies - an art without
predefined form or structure. Artists merely had to engage with their
materials. The actual name "Art Informel" was first coined in
1951 by the French art critic Michel Tapie, when describing the improvization
(untouched by past or contemporary conventions) practised by a number
of painters at his Paris exhibition on the theme of "Extreme Tendencies
in Non-Figurative Painting".

Note: a good way to understand Art
Informel is to think of it as "formless improvisation".

Participants in this exhibition, entitled
"Un Art Autre" (Art of Another Kind), included artists like
Karel Appel, Alberto Burri,
Jean Dubuffet, Willem
De Kooning, Georges Mathieu,
Jean Fautrier, Jean-Paul
Riopelle, and Wols, along with Henri Michaux, Hans Hartung and Pierre
Soulages. As a result, the term Art Autre - from the title
of the exhibition and Tapies book - is a not uncommon synonym for Art
Informel, although the latter seems to be the term favoured by most
art critics.

Terminology and Related Schools of Art

Art Informel originated in Germany,
before spreading to France - where it was most active - and later Italy,
Spain, and Japan. Its various manifestations and sub-variants included
Tachisme, "Art Autre", Gesture Painting,
Lyrical Abstraction, and Matter
art. Art Informel was related stylistically to other groups and
styles, including the Danish/Dutch/Belgian CoBrA
group, the German groups Zen 49 and Quadriga, the Canadian
Automatistes, the Italian Arte Nucleare and the Japanese
Gutai association. In a more basic sense, Art Informel was
a sort of recuperation of the Dada anti-art movement
of the 1910s and early 1920s: a return to ground zero. It also influenced
the later figurative style known as Neo-Expressionism.

Initial Art Informel pictures were
small-scale paintings and drawings on paper enhanced with watercolour.
Thereafter, artists moved on to large-scale canvases, to which they applied
oil paint thickly, with a spatula, palette knife, or brush, or directly
from the tube. Painters shunned explicit figuration preferring blotches,
marks and tangles of paint. Forms (gestural or calligraphic) loomed up
themselves from the canvas. Above all, the artist sought to produce something
accidental and unexpected - something impulsive! - as far away as possible
from the "well-made" traditional painting. A well-used source
of inspiration for this type of Art Informel was the Surrealist
technique of automatism, such
as that practised by Andre
Masson (1896-1987). In any event, paintings were executed spontaneously
and rapidly so as to give full expression to the subconscious of the artist.

Matter Painting

In addition to Tachisme, another sub-variant
of Art Informel was Matter Painting. This arose when the artist
placed an emphasis on the texture, tactile quality or other evocative
powers of the paint or other materials (often unusual ones). Artists involved
in Matter Painting included the Italian Alberto Burri (1915-95);
Dutchmen Jaap Wagemaker (1906-75) and Bram Bogart (b.1921); and Catalonian
Antoni Tapies (b.1923).